Summary
Rupture of the cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) is one of the most frequent causes
of lameness of the rear limb in the dog. Regardless of the type of treatment, CCL
rupture inevitably leads to knee osteoarthritis (OA). The purpose of this study was
to evaluate the efficacy of associating surgical treatment of spontaneous rupture
of the CCL with a chondroprotector, that is called “supraadditive” because it is formulated
to counteract not only chondrodegeneration, but also the oxidative and inflammatory
processes of OA. The open-label controlled study used proton NMR spectroscopy to evaluate
the synovial fluid of the stifle of 10 dogs with monolateral rupture of the CCL, selected
for the study based on specific inclusive criteria. The dogs were assigned randomly
into two groups. Five dogs received the supra-additive chondroprotector for 60 days,
starting on the day after surgery. Five dogs only underwent surgical reconstruction
of the CCL. The results were analysed with the ANOVA unstructured variance matrix-covariance
test. The trend overtime of the synovial concentration of four metabolites (lactate,
alanine, acetyl groups of N-acety-lated sugars on glycoproteins and alpha-anomers
of glucose) was found to differ to a statistically significant extent between the
two groups, suggesting that the supra-additive chondroprotector produces an intra-ar-ticular
metabolic rebalance. The results support the adjuvant use of the chondroprotector
in the management of CCL rupture, in view of its control of the OA changes that accompany
this orthopaedic disabling condition.
Keywords
Osteoarthritis - dogs - cranial cruciate ligament - chondroprotection - spectroscopy
